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Review of periodicals: "L'Arche", "Forverts", "Der yiddisher tam tam", "Outlook", "Shofar", "Yad Vashem Magazine", "Yad Vashem Studies", "YIVO News".
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A comprehensive review on András Kovács' A különbség köztünk van (The Difference is between Us: Anti-Semitism and the Yound Elite).
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La littérature française est prodigue en figures de femmes juives. Au fil du temps, l’image de « la Juive » se fixe dans la mentalité occidentale, mythe reflétant de grandes tendances politiques, historiques, sociales et intellectuelles et évoluant avec elles. Elle émerge au Moyen Âge et au XIXe siècle et connaît l’épanouissement comme la « belle Juive ». Ce personnage fictif et polymorphe porte certains traits constants qui constituent l’essence même de sa figure exemplaire et traduisent le rapport ambivalent de l’Occident à l’Autre. Car « chaque époque et chaque société recréent ses propres “autres” » (Said 2005: 358) et le Juif est l’Autre par excellence. Sa marginalisation s’opère par l’exclusion religieuse, par la juridiction antijuive, par une certaine imperméabilité culturelle, qui obère les échanges. Dans ce contexte, la « belle Juive » révèle le degré d’interdépendances et d’interactions entre les sociétés non juive et juive. Parallèlement, cet archétype traduit aussi, dans une sphère plus individuelle, le fantasme de l’Autre comme objet du désir et de l’interdit, d’autant plus troublant que le Juif, bien que socialement identifié, se (con)fond physiquement
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The city of Dura-Europos1 in modern day Syria provides a microcosm of multi-ethnic and multi-religious life in the late ancient Near East. Although there are debates as to the exact date of the conquest of the city, the year 256 CE appears to be the most plausible date in which the King of Kings, Šāpur I took Dura.2 In the third century, the city was abandoned and so the life of Dura came to an end after more than half a millennium of existence.3 Its apparent sudden abandonment has made it a wonderful archaeological playground for studying life in the third century CE on the border of the Irano-Hellenic world of antiquity. The city had changed hands several times since its creation in the fourth century BCE by the Seleucids to when Mithradates II (113 BCE) conquered it and brought it into the Arsacid imperial orbit, where it emained for three centuries. The Arsacid control of a trading town or as it was once called a caravan town, works well with the story that Mithradates II, several years before the takeover of Dura-Europos, had concluded an agreement with the Chinese Emperor Wudi for trade cooperation. In the larger scheme of things, these activities, no matter how accurate the dating is, suggest the idea that the Arsacids may have been thinking of the creation of a large trade network as part of what modern historians have called the “Silk Road.” Dura was subsequently conquered in the second century CE by Emperor Trajan (115–117 CE) and later, in 165 CE, by Avidius Cassius, after which it stayed in Roman hands for almost a century. The Sasanians in turn conquered the city in 256 CE.
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The year 1815 saw the emergence of a new State on the map of Europe – the Free City of Kraków, which, because of its affiliation to the small group of European Republics, was also referred to as the Republic of Kraków. The Free City of Kraków stretched along the left bank of the River Vistula, bordering to the west with the Kingdom of Prussia, to the north and east with the Kingdom of Poland and to the south with the Austrian Empire. Its total surface area was 1150 km², which – apart from Kraków which became the capital – also contained three small private towns, Chrzanów, Nowa Góra and Trzebinia, as well as 244 villages
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The conquest of the Near East by Alexander of Macedon began a new era in the history of this region. This pregnant event was quite differently perceived and judged by contemporaries in conquered lands, Palestine among them. To those, the Macedonian’s victory over the Persians meant little more than one hegemonist replacing another. It must have been with concern, or perhaps with hope, that they awaited possible changes under the new political arrangement. We know little about Alexander’s direct rule over Palestine, but the historical evidence we have suggests that the behavior of local populations in the area did not always meet the expectations of Macedonian conquerors. One example may be seen in the attitude of the Jerusalem Temple’s high priest, who, despite Alexander’s superiority at arms, firmly declared his loyalty to the Persian king (Jos. AJ 11, 317–319), while some in Samaria’s elites chose to follow their self-interest and did not hesitate to join the conqueror (Jos. AJ 11, 321–324; 340–345). Although local elites and communities declared their willingness to cooperate with the Macedonian monarch, there were no avoiding tensions and conflicts between locals and newcomers. One such instance was a mutiny in Samaria city against the Macedonians, during which the Syrian governor Andromachus was killed. In retaliation, the rebellion was quenched in blood and Macedonian settlers were brought into Samaria. Stability in the new political arrangement was helped by the religious tolerance the Macedonian conquerors showed to the local population. Interested mainly in exploiting the conquered territory, they did not intend to interfere with the inhabitants’ life or impose their own practices. Such a state of affairs was in effect during the life of Alexander of Macedon and throughout the rule of the Ptolemies, who overran southern Palestine in the late 4th century BCE. Great changes in Palestine, and especially in Judea, did not occur until the Seleucid rule, which came about following Antiochus III’s victory over Egyptian forces in the battle of Panion (198 BCE).
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In the nineteenth-century European literary tradition the Jew is represented as “the Other”. The general image is a stereotypical description of the Jew as a parasite, a sorcerer or a villain. Even when one can specify and set down the linguistic, geographical and historical circumstances in which particular novels and stories were written, many of them incorporate the figure of “the Jew” as a construct that plays a particular role in the narrative.1 Alongside the development of the European fiction, within the Jewish literary context, the new-Hebrew and Yiddish literatures are born and mature. The writers simultaneously bring in distinct features characteristic of the Jewish background, languages and context, while they also look towards European literary models and pattern their prose, to some extent, on the European style.
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I just want to make an introductory note: I – like Marcin Kula in his book on the “Stubborn question. Jewish? Polish? Humane?” – am very well aware of the fact that the definitions “Jew” and “Christian” are not satisfactory. But as Gebirtig was a Pole and at the same time a traditionally raised and educated religious Jew, I decided to use this terminology in this article, which deals with Polish-Jewish relations before the Second World War and includes the relations with the Germans after the invasion of Poland in September 1939. As far as I can see, the topic of the relations between Jews and Christians has now shifted into the centre of academic interest in Poland, judging by the significant number of books and articles published on the subject. These relations, having, as I mentioned, also included the Germans, thus created a triangle full of tensions which are also a topic of research and discussion within the Polish literature of the last twenty years.
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REVIEW - David M. Jacobson & Nikos Kokkinos (eds.), Herod and Augustus. Papers Presented at the IJS Conference, 21st–23rd June 2005 (IJS Studies in Judaica – 6), Brill, Leiden–Boston 2009, pp. 502, b/w ill. ISSN 1570-1581, ISBN 978-90-04-16546-5
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Eusebius’ Chronika was a remarkable achievement in the field of ancient chronography, not least as the conclusion of extensive research running since the beginning of the Hellenistic period. It was a double work, composed some time before AD 311 and expanded shortly after AD 325. The first part, now usually called Chronographia, was a detailed introduction, aiming at collecting the raw material from all sources then available, and setting out the plan of the project. The second part, known as Kanones (Chronikoi Kanones), which carried its own preface, was a grand exposition (utilising the data of the first part) in the form of a table consisting of up to nine parallel columns to be read across, thus presenting a synchronistic universal history at a glance.1 Only fragments survive of the Greek original, primarily in George the Syncellus (ca. AD 800) and an anonymous excerptor (known as ‘Excerpta Eusebiana’ from a MS of the 15th century AD). But we have a nearly complete Armenian translation (earliest copy ca. 13th century AD), a Latin translation of the second part by Jerome (with his own preface and extended to AD 380/1), as well as two Syriac epitomes, one of which is believed to have been compiled by Joshua the Stylite (8th century AD), and other witnesses including two very early Arab chroniclers, one being Agapius of Hierapolis, ca. AD 942.
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There is no need to prove the significant role played by legends, myths and stereotypes in the history of the world. Also in the Polish lands, we can find many stories connected with the history of the Jews. There is still no comprehensive study on legends concerning Jews in mediaeval Poland, but we already have the book by Haya Bar-Itzhak, a professor of Comparative Hebrew Literature at the Haifa University. An exception here may be the well-known legend about the love affair between King Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great) and the Jewish girl Esther, which has been widely described in many works. Of special importance is the book written by the eminent literary historian and linguist, Chone Shmeruk, entitled “Legenda o Esterce w literaturze jidysz i polskiej” (The Legend of Esther in Yiddish and Polish Literature)
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When I came to Kraków for the first time several years ago and tried to get some information about the Jewish Kraków, among the first-hand information I was offered in the bookshops were a few small booklets with legends about the Jews in this town. This is nothing special, for wherever one goes as a tourist one gets the same genre of literature: local legends and tales. It seems, therefore, that the popular legends indeed offer the first-hand information about the specific climate and the self-estimation of the inhabitants at a specific place. It is obviously the tales of a city that infuse life to its stones and places more than all exact historical data one can gather. The legend gives, so to speak, a short-hand résumé of the most typical and central features as well as the spirit of a place.
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REVIEW - Anna Jakimyszyn, Żydzi krakowscy w dobie Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej. Status prawny – przeobrażenia gminy – system edukacyjny [The Jews of Kraków in the Times of the Republic of Kraków], Austeria Publishing House, Kraków–Budapest 2008, pp. 368; ISBN 978-83-89129-67-3
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Cruciadele, în forma lor clasică, au fost opt la număr şi au avut loc între secolele XI-XIII (1096-1270). Ele au apărut într-o societate aflată în plină expansiune politică şi militară. După anul 1000, Europa Occidentală cunoaşte o răsturnare de situaţie. Ea nu mai este o “citadelă asediată” şi întreprinde o expansiune care nu va mai înceta pe durata Evului Mediu: cruciadele, războiul sfânt creştin. Cruciada apare ca un fenomen cu totul nou la sfârşitul secolului al XI-lea, dar nu este decât rezultatul unui ansamblu de idei şi de practici îndelung maturizate în cursul secolelor precedente. Dacă în primele trei secole expresia “milites Christi” îi desemna pe toţi creştinii, în special pe martiri, treptat ajunge să-i desemneze doar pe călugari şi clerul, ce-i care-l servesc pe Dumnezeu. Interpretarea semantică semnificativă se va produce însă în secolul al XI-lea, când această expresie […]
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Currently extensively debated as regards the adequate approaches and the impact on the younger generation, but also in connection with the training and motivation of educators, Holocaust education seems to enjoy consensus in the Romanian schooling system as far as the studied timeframe is concerned: 1938–1945. The explanation is easy to find – this is the period investigated and focused upon by the former Wiesel International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania, as abundantly shown by its Report1 published in 2005 and particularly by the volume of documents2 accompanying it. Still, to better understand the phenomenon it is necessary to set it in the context of the Romanian cultural space.
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Populaţia evreiască în spaţiul românesc este, cum se ştie, veche, dar proporţiile acesteia încep să crească masiv odată cu începutul secolului al XIX-lea şi, mai ales, după intrarea în vigoare a Regulamentelor Organice în cele două Principate. Numărul evreilor din Moldova şi Muntenia a crescut între 1831 şi 1899, de la aproximativ 37.000 la 266.652 de suflete, ceea ce însemna 4,5% din populaţia totală a Vechiului Regat de la sfîrşitul secolului al XIX-lea. Aşadar, în intervalul unei vieţi de om, numărul evreilor aşezaţi aici s-a multiplicat de mai bine de 7 ori. Imigraţia cea mai substanţială a avut loc în Moldova, dar ea e sensibilă şi în Muntenia, mai ales la Bucureşti. Dacă se iau în calcul particularităţile cultural-religioase iniţiale ale acestei populaţii, originară în cea mai mare parte din Polonia şi Rusia, puternic modelată de hasidism şi de un stil de viaţă propriu, de ceea ce se cheamă idişkeit (mod de viaţă ortodox, port tradiţional polonez, limbă idiş etc.), se va putea constata că disponibilitatea ei de a se integra în societatea majoritară era, într-o primă fază, redusă, dacă nu cvasi-inexistentă.
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Monotheism is an idea attributed to Jewish origins even though there exists no equivalent term in the Hebrew language. So despite that this statement is a truism and Jews have believed de facto in the one God since the times of Abraham, theology per se has never been a Jewish vocation and therefore it is only through the Western philosophic influence of the middle-ages that Jewish thinkers have systematically delved into the fine points of their monotheistic belief. That does not mean that changes have not taken place that need to be understood.
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